After an interminably long wait, it finally got warm this week, prompting me to spring into action. It was hard to believe that just last week Tokyo got blasted with heavy snow. Short sleeves and shorts were the watchword, even for typically well-covered types such as Mrs. Kangaeroo. Even though she notoriously feels that anything under 35 degrees Celsius is cold, even Mrs. Kangaeroo was walking around on Friday night in short sleeves due to the delightfully warm weather. My aches and pains eased a little with the warmth, too, which made it a bit easier to be mobile. It…
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Having lived in Japan for decades, it’s suddenly strange to see the country become what seems to be the global flavor the month, particularly when it comes to the phenomenal interest in akiya, one of the millions of empty homes throughout the country. All of the photos in this post are of akiya on sale for less than 1 million yen, which is about A$10,000 at the time of writing, picked up off a site at random. Akiya has become a well-known word globally as people have become attracted by the prospect of owning real estate for a fraction of…
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Blessed with a shared day off for the Emperor’s Birthday, the Kangaeroos decided to spend it dealing with Monet matters. We traveled to Tokorozawa Sakura Town to take in the Monet: I Can See the Lights – An Immersive Journey exhibition. It was a decent show featuring a series of French Impressionist artist Claude Monet’s works projected against a massive hall to the accompaniment of soothing music. A series of prints by Impressionist artists and an informative, bilingual explanation of the art form and changes that were occurring as it developed, including the influence of Japonisme, completed the event held…
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Cleaning up my PC over the weekend, I got a great reminder of misspent hours more than a decade ago, when I found loads of vintage posters touting the wonders of Australia. Some of them also came from a campaign taking the piss of the retro trend. See if you can find which ones. This gallery is a reminder of when Kangaeroo aspired to be a blog about a lesser-known side of Australia. Related posts: Japan’s Crucial Role in Turning “Mad Max” into a Global Aussie Icon Awe-tumnal! 豪メルボルン郊外で激しくなっている「マック紛争」 時にはオージーのやることが良い、、、名前が豪風だけでも Sexism Sells…Aussie Princes and Arresting the Great Japanese Tourist Decline…
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Cricket is one of the few things I really miss about life in Australia, and stumbling across the Japan Cricket Association website recently led me down a rabbit hole centered around willow, an integral yet often unremembered part of life in my two countries. Come down the willow wormhole with me! Cricket is booming in Japan. Looking at the website, I was surprised to see how much the game of cricket has developed since I was last in touch with it in around 2007 or so. There are associations in every region of the country, 100 senior teams and about…
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Walking around central Tokyo over a couple of days this week, I got to discover a pocket garden filled with Aussie plants, including blooming grevillea and kangaroo paw. This little circular garden created a wonderful whirled of Aus, right in the Marunouchi business district. Flowers weren’t the only wonderful sights of the city. Walking around gifted me plenty of wonderful sights to see. Related posts: Garden of Weedin’ A Pheasant Makes Things Pleasant Bromocalypse, Now! Sunrises Over Far North Queensland Bonzer Bonsai! Catching Up with Some Old Mates Pawing My Heart Out Winter is Here Get Off Of My Cloud!…
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Blessed with a bit of time and being in close proximity, I used the beautiful weather to visit Tama Zoological Park, testing a new Nikon Z 50 camera. I first visited this zoo in 1993, at a time when the memory of the 1984 arrival of koalas was still fresh. Koalas were flavor of the month in Japan at the time, literally so in the case of Koala no March–a confectionary that remains popular to this day–and the zoo’s Australian Habitat was something of a showcase area. Now, it’s just one of many habitats in what is a delightful little…
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I got to make a flying visit to the “Bird” exhibition held at the National Museum of Nature and Science. The exhibition traced birds’ roles in ecosystems, dating from their evolution from dinosaurs through to the important roles they play today. There were over 600 bird specimins exhibited, divided into displays based on themes largely decided by avian type. The exibition boasted of providing a new look at birds through a genetic analysis. These were some of the aspects of the exhibition that were good to like. Other areas were not so great. Despite being a weekday and the entrance…
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Way back in the early 1980s, Australia went from barely being a blip on the average Japanese radar to capturing the nation’s attention thanks to the frill-necked lizard, an endemic Australian reptile that uses its frill to threaten or frighten off predators. The lizard was featured in a March 1984 episode of Waku Waku Dobutsu Land (Exciting Animal Land), a popular TV show in those days when limited information meant news spread more broadly than now. The program offered a frill-necked lizard plush toy to six lucky viewers drawn from a lottery. More than 700,000 entries were received. Then, Mitsubishi…
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I had no idea until yesterday, but for years I have been living quite close to Totoro, a Shinto kami made globally famous through Hayao Miyazaki‘s utterly delightful 1988 animated movie, My Neighbor Totoro. OK, so it’s not the real forest-protecting spirit as depicted by STUDIO GHIBLI, but the topiary sculpture is wonderful. It’s a work that I’m pretty sure is unauthorized by Suzaki, a gardening company in the Tokyo suburb of Kokubunji. A cycling buddy posted photos of Totoro on social media yesterday, and with only a couple of pre-dawn hours available for anything today due to home requirements,…